Good morning. Hope you had a restful long weekend. We’ve got a packed newsletter today, so let’s get right into it.

In today's newsletter:📸 SkyFi launch🎙️ Pathfinder #0031💻 Stell pre-seed🗓️ The week ahead🔁 On the move

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Satellite Imagery for the Masses

SkyFi believes that satellite imagery should be easily accessible and affordable for anyone to access. Today, the Austin, TX startup took a major step toward democratizing that data with the public launch of its mobile and web apps.

The story so far: SkyFi built an entirely new app and interface for individuals to task satellites and buy archival images. SkyFi’s app, it says, is the first consumer-focused satellite imagery purchasing platform.

“No one likes to talk to a salesperson, exchange emails, get a custom quote, and wait for them to approve your use case or imagery,” Luke Fischer, CEO of SkyFi, told Payload. “That's not democratizing access, that's bottlenecking access. For us, we want to make it as painless as possible.”

The company has raised $10M so far to develop its app, and it launched a beta version in September.

• Roughly 1,300 people signed on to be beta testers.

• Of that group, 25% converted, so to speak, and made accounts.

• SkyFi’s curated cohort of testers largely included individuals who are proficient in the dark arts of buying satellite imagery, but it also included total newcomers.

Feedback from the newcomers in particular led to simpler language and improved educational resources on the website, Fischer said.

Open for business: Within twelve taps—they counted—users will be able to order a brand-new satellite image from the Skyfi app. Electro-optical and multispectral imagery is available from any of the company’s 16 data partners.

Transparent pricing, Fischer said, is core to the company’s values. “There should be no smoke and mirrors about how much it costs,” he said.

• Existing satellite images start at $20.

• Tasking a satellite to capture a new image starts at $175.

Keep an eye out…SkyFi is developing an analytics layer that users can pay a subscription fee to access. The startup has partnered with nine analytics providers to make that happen.

Pathfinder #0031, featuring Jim Bridenstine

In Pathfinder #0031, we welcome Jim Bridenstine on to the Pathfinder podcast. Jim was the 13th administrator of NASA, and under his leadership, the US launched the Artemis program.

Today's episode is brought to you by Altek Space, a custom manufacturer of essential parts and components for rockets and satellites.

Jim’s bio will be familiar to most space buffs in Payload and Pathfinder’s audience, so in our convo, we dig a bit deeper on his backstory, get a status report on Artemis, and take a closer look at his current roles in the commercial space ecosystem.

A sneak peek

• Flying in the US Navy; landing on aircraft carriers; and TOP GUN…real life vs. the movie(s)

• Jim’s involvement in the Rocket Racing League and his time at the helm of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum and Planetarium

• Serving in the US House (and his HASC and SST committee membership)

• Working with an office of “space knuckleheads”—Jim uses that term endearingly—and honing his aerospace policy chops while on Capitol Hill

• Why going to the Moon vs. going to Mars was once an either-or, partisan debate on the Hill

• Jim’s time leading NASA and architecting the Artemis program

• His post-NASA commercial space involvement

• A big space story to watch in 2023: “We need to get to a better spot when it comes to space situational awareness and space traffic management.”

Pathfinder #0031 is out now

This is our longest show to date and for good reason. We had a lot of ground to cover. Check out the episode now:

📺 on YouTube,📱 Apple Podcasts,🎧 or Spotify.

Stell Raises $3.1M

Stell, a startup building an efficient workflow platform for the aerospace industry, announced this morning the closing of a $3.1M pre-seed round led by Wischoff Ventures and Third Prime VC.

The comms problem: When it comes to communicating the deeply complex, technical information critical to aerospace engineering, a lot can get lost in translation. “The tooling to communicate well is not really there across the supply chain,” Malory McLemore, cofounder and CEO of Stell, told Payload.

McLemore experienced these problems working as a liaison and product manager at companies including Airbus, Raytheon, and Hadrian. “It wasn't that the suppliers didn't care,” she said. “It was just really hard to do a good job when you can't communicate that really technical information.”

At Harvard Business School, McLemore teamed up with Anne Wen, former biz dev specialist at Mission Control, to build their supplier communications platform.

Maximizing productivity: Stell’s platform is designed to minimize engineering hours spent on sending emails and playing paperwork ping-pong. “You can add things like comments, history, and it's connected to the RFQ and the purchase order,” said McLemore. “All of the technical information you need to schedule a job is actually live and you can engage with it.”

What’s next? So far, Stell has designed the bones of its platform and is working on building out its functionality. The founding team has brought on a lead engineer and is currently on the hunt for another engineer and a designer.

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In Other News

• SpaceX launched the classified USSF-67 mission on a Falcon Heavy from KSC. The rocket is gearing up for a busy year…

• Investors filed a lawsuit against Virgin Galactic ($SPCE), alleging that the firm’s carrier aircraft were not suitable for regular flight.

• Lunar Flashlight has a propulsion issue with three of its four thrusters underperforming. NASA is looking into fixes and contingency plans, if need be, for the Moon-bound spacecraft.

• Euroconsult published its first report on the optical inter-satellite link (OISL) market, which found that more than 70,000 OIS terminals are expected to be in orbit by 2031.

• China launched 14 commercial payloads on a Long March 2D rideshare mission over the weekend. The mission lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center.

The View from Mojave

Stratolaunch conducted a second captive carry test flight of its Talon-A test vehicle last week. The company’s Roc flew a six-hour mission, its longest to date. It’s also the first time the carrier aircraft has flown outside the Mojave range.